Strike: Career of Evil, part two, review – this detective deserves more than three Strikes and out

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With all three of Robert Galbraith’s Cormoran Strike novels now broadcast, it's time for an open letter to the person behind the pseudonym, JK Rowling: “Please, please, get on with writing some more.”

Because even as the second half of Strike: Career of Evil(BBC One) came to a close, there was a niggling sensation that we are only just beginning to see what Strike (Tom Burke) and his sidekick Robin (Holliday Grainger) could be like together.

Indeed, by far the most infuriating part of last night’s concluding hour was waiting for Robin, a woman wise beyond her years, to wise up, get rid of her weedy fiancé, Matthew (Kerr Logan), and shack up with Strike. For one, he’s called Strike, and then he sleeps in an armchair, has a prosthetic leg and may even be the saviour of TV crime fiction if J K would just pull her finger out. There is no way on God’s sweet Earth that Robin can end up with anyone else.

Away from the will-they, won’t-they, which is actually a when-will-they, last night’s finale showed precisely why Strike is the best new detective series of the past five years. It’s got very little to do with the plot – our murderer turned out to have been wearing a fake beard and a hat, in the sort of reveal you might see in Scooby Doo – though I do like the way there were occasional references to the first Strike case, Cuckoo's Calling, in the second. Too many detective series imagine that each murder exists in a bubble, never to be mentioned or thought of again.

No, the strength of Strike lies with Strike and Robin themselves, a pairing so perfect they deserve a Hello! magazine front cover and the sobriquet Strobin. Plenty has been said about Tom Burke as the lead, but Holliday Grainger as Robin (who I’m pretty sure is basically a cipher for a young J K Rowling) is every bit as surprising. She’s a partner more than a sidekick and she’s given just as much screen time as the putative main man. Let’s just hope it’s not three strikes and they’re out.